


First

by deedeeinfj



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deedeeinfj/pseuds/deedeeinfj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus helps Sirius remember</p>
            </blockquote>





	First

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on Livejournal, 2003.

Damn it, he should not have to be doing this. He should be out gathering information, conferring with other members of the Order about Important Things or keeping watch over Harry at that horrible home of Lily's sister, not helping a moody outlaw scrub the floor. And neither one of them should be scrubbing a floor on their hands and knees when a few well-chosen spells might have done the job. But no, Remus had argued, "this floor is beyond the reach of magic." And yes, Sirius reasoned, Remus did look fetching with his hair hanging down in his face that way.  
  
Remus suddenly sat back on his heels, turned to Sirius, and grinned. "Do you remember the time you and James charmed those rags to attack Filch?"  
  
Sirius' jaw tightened, and he returned with unusual interest to scrubbing the floor. "No," he mumbled.  
  
"Don't you remember? How they gagged him, and then James--"  
  
"I said I don't remember."  
  
Damn this floor. He glanced up from the corner of his eye, but Remus was concentrating on the floor as if his life depended on it. Pitying the tortured, wrongfully imprisoned man, no doubt. He sometimes wondered if Remus enjoyed dwelling on sadness. But no, that wasn't quite fair; hadn't he just been recalling what sounded like a very lovely and satisfying memory of torturing Filch?  
  
"We had just left the Great Hall," Remus said suddenly. Sirius blinked and shook his hair out of his eyes, turning his face up to look at Remus. "Peter--" Sirius made an angry sound in his throat, but Remus continued. "Peter was supposed to serve a detention. Cleaning windows, I think. And we were helping him carry everything to the greenhouses."  
  
"Wait, what year was this?"  
  
"End of sixth," Remus replied, still looking down at the floor as he cleaned. "He had several buckets of rags, and we left them with him. We were just turning the corner when James stopped and suggested that we, er... work a little mischief."  
  
Remus looked up finally, and Sirius grinned. "I like this one already. No wonder the Dementors took it."  
  
A shadow passed over Remus' face, but he smiled again. "Filch appeared and started shouting at Peter, when suddenly a rag rose out of one of the buckets and stuffed itself into his mouth. Then you--" Remus broke off, laughing. "You made three more of them wrap themselves around his face, and he couldn't make a sound. Then James made a bucket fly up and land on Filch's head. I think you and I ran for it after that, but James stayed behind to make a few rags float around Peter, so that he wouldn't get into trouble. And that, Padfoot, was how we got Peter out of detention and made Filch eat filthy rags." Remus shook his head fondly and resumed cleaning the floor. "That was a good day. It was later that night, you know, when I walked with you to the library to find that book you'd left."  
  
"What was so good about that?"  
  
There was a long silence, then Remus looked up again. "Did they take everything from you, Sirius?"  
  
"No, they didn't take everything, so stop looking at me like that. They left me with a few horrible memories, just so I'd have some reference points," Sirius replied in frustration, and more unkindly than he'd intended.  
  
Remus covered the few feet of distance between them, laid a hand on Sirius' jawline, and kissed him with a strange kind of uncertainty. "That's what was so good about it," Remus said quietly, drawing back a little. He held up a finger and smiled slightly. "The very first."   
  
"Kiss?" he managed.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Sirius swallowed and stared at Remus intently. "Tell me what happened?"  
  
"We used the cloak to get in, since it was after hours," Remus said, tossing his rag aside and focusing all his attention on Sirius. He was damn sexy when he focused like that, with his eyes so still and serious, his mouth barely forming a smile at a happy memory that had not been stolen from him. "We found the book just where we'd left it--"  
  
"The Restricted Section, I imagine."  
  
"Of course. We were walking back, and you tripped."  
  
"Wait a minute, now how do I know you're 'remembering' this right? How do I know you're not changing history to make yourself look better?"  
  
"Do I really need to change history to make myself look better?"  
  
Sirius glanced down at the grinning mouth. "No."  
  
"You tripped and fell, then I stumbled on the cloak and fell beside you. I enjoyed quite a laugh at you, and then you just--"  
  
Sirius leaned forward and pressed his lips to Remus' with a smile.   
  
"'Couldn't help yourself,' I believe is what you said," Remus continued shakily. "Not that I had any complaints."   
  
"That must've been one of the first they took," muttered Sirius. "Something like that."  
  
Remus pushed him backwards a little and hovered over him, eyes bright. "Then I imagine they took the first of everything." He paused, his face intent and calm as he pulled off the ratty shirt he'd been wearing to do chores. "They did, didn't they?"  
  
Sirius nodded. His throat was too dry to speak.  
  
"We were on a hard floor," said Remus, leaning in close so that his hair brushed Sirius' face. "Just like this one. The Shrieking Shack, seventh year. James and Peter were in detention. A detention which you, I might add, cleverly worked your way out of."   
  
Sirius smiled lazily and slid a hand down one of Remus' arms. "And why didn't we use the bed?" he asked.  
  
"Because we didn't want to wait long enough to get there," Remus replied. Sirius drew in a shaky breath as his shirt was pulled over his head, and Remus pushed him slowly down to the floor.  
  
"Good thing we cleaned up in here a bit."  
  
"We?" Remus chuckled, just before claiming Sirius' mouth hungrily. Sirius raised no objections. "I'm going to give a memory back to you, Sirius," he murmured. "One of the best."   
  
Sirius stared up at Remus, memorizing everything, pretending he was seventeen and boldly skipping detention and in the Shrieking Shack and madly in love -- well, nothing to pretend on that last one. He trailed his hand down Remus' chest and stomach, but was surprised when a firm hand stopped him. "Remus..." he breathed.   
  
"No." He guided Sirius' hand back up and kissed him again. "You're the one who needs reminding." Another kiss. "We sort of stumbled onto the floor, and our shirts disappeared fairly quickly," Remus smiled, then the dancing eyes darkened into the intensity that Sirius loved. "Then I stopped and looked at you and said, 'What are we doing, Padfoot?'"  
  
"And what did I say?"  
  
"I believe you said, 'If you really have to ask me that, I wonder how you passed any of your O.W.L.s.'"  
  
"Good answer. I must've been a clever chap."   
  
Remus bit his lower lip lightly. "Oh, you were. Then I asked you to be serious, and you..." Sirius was already laughing; he knew where this was going, and Remus rolled his eyes. "You said you already were."  
  
"You have to admit, that one never got old."  
  
"Hmmm." Remus reached down and brushed his fingertips across Sirius' waistband. "Too bad you don't remember what happened next..."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
Remus smiled and unzipped the trousers, his eyes never leaving Sirius' face. "We were in something of a hurry," he said quietly. "But I think for our present purposes, I can take my time." His hand found what it sought, and Sirius gasped. Remus leaned closer to him. "And like this," he whispered, "was the first time I ever touched you."  
  
"And what..." Sirius fought for words, however impossible it seemed. "When did I touch you?" He was desperate to get to that part, his hands pressed down in frustration on the hard floor. "Moony--"  
  
Reaching for one of his hands, Remus guided it towards his own stomach, and then lower. "Try not to rip any articles of clothing this time," he said breathlessly.  
  
"D-did I really?"  
  
"Yes. That was a difficult patch to explain."  
  
Sirius let out a bark of laughter, then stared up at Remus' face as he lowered the zipper. "How did I...?"  
  
"You--just like that."  
  
Sirius smiled at Remus' discomposure. "Maybe I better not" -- though he continued anyway -- "or you won't be able to guide me accurately through the rest."  
  
"I think accuracy is... no longer a concern."  
  
"Speak for yourself.  _You_  remember it all." He tried to think of something he enjoyed more than making Moony speechless, waking the dark passion in eyes that most often preferred a quiet book, disintegrating that calm composure into chaos, calling forth impatient demands from the soft-spoken voice, and nothing came to mind. "Tell me, Mr. Moony," he breathed, "how much longer before we can take these trousers off?"  
  
"Mine were first, since you ripped them. And then you--" Remus broke off as Sirius made quick work of removing the offending articles of clothing.   
  
"Then I?" Sirius prompted, summoning all the willpower he possessed not to ravish Remus right then and there.  
  
"You rolled us over, and I..."  
  
Sirius happily obliged, allowing his weight to settle on Remus. "You have quite a memory," he said, leaning in for a kiss. "And these trousers are becoming a nuisance."  
  
Remus smiled and reached down to remove the trousers at last, and both of them gasped at the familiar, yet always exciting, feel of skin on skin. "Then I... I'm going to have to stop talking," Remus managed to say, "for this part."  
  
"Never thought I'd say this, but that sounds great." He buried his fingers in Remus' hair as the latter moved underneath him, kissing his way down pounding chest and tight stomach. "Can you imagine what that lucky bastard thought when he stole this one? I'd say he-- oh gods, Remus."   
  
He braced himself up with one hand, the other still in Remus' hair, divided between pleasure and painful disbelief that he could have forgotten this. Then again, maybe it was a mercy that such memories were lost, or he surely might have lost his mind in Azkaban, unable to touch Remus, to stare in fascination at the strands of hair that perpetually hung in his face, to reduce his articulate friend into incoherency. In Azkaban, there had been only shadows, a vague idea that he had been loved by someone he once betrayed, and that he had loved someone who now thought he was a murderer, and that all of it was gone. A gasp and a shudder, and now it seemed that Remus had drawn all of the sadness out of him, filling him instead with this happiness regained, memory recreated.   
  
Then the loving face reappeared beneath his, the mouth still parted, and Sirius covered it, searching within it for words and images and senses that couldn't be spoken. He closed his eyes and saw the two of them in the Shack, heard their labored breathing, smelled the lingering scent of the wolf in the dark room and on the battered furniture, tasted Remus and tasted himself, felt the inaudible moan moving through Remus' chest and throat.  
  
Remus rolled them over again, and Sirius opened his eyes to stare up at the boy who had suddenly become a man. The twelve years had passed by much more slowly in Azkaban. Remus smiled down at him, and then he realized that he knew this, he had been here before. He had not let them take this, because there it was in a far corner, stashed away for safe-keeping, Remus looking down at him, about to finalize the transaction, the simple bargain of "you to me, I to you." He stumbled upon them occasionally, jigsaw pieces of former happiness. An adventure here, a stupid prank there. And here was one of those pieces. They had taken everything else about that night in the Shack, but he had managed to save these few seconds, the smile that had now already faded into a look of desire. Another piece placed in the puzzle.   
  
He had no memory of what he'd done to satisfy the look in Remus' eyes, but then realized that it didn't matter. It made no difference what had happened  _then_ , because the two of them were here  _now_ , still damned uncomfortable on a hard floor. He reached down, saw the darkened eyes flare, and wondered how many more memories needed to be returned. After all, "first" must always imply more to follow. And knowing himself and Remus, there must have been much more. He'd have to remember to speak for this technique as a preferable alternative to Time-Turners and Pensieves.   
  
"Yes..." Remus gasped.  
  
Even Mr. Moony agreed.


End file.
